


Environmental Functionality

by JezebelGoldstone



Category: The Losers (2010), The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: Cute, DADT, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Humor, Jensen and Cougar ship it and you can fight me, Love Declarations, M/M, PTSD, Romance, SO MUCH FLUFF, Silence, True Love, but don't worry no one does anything about it, cougar's silence, fluff fluff fluff, gratuitous Hartwin references, gratuitous Kingsman references, minor ableism (only talked about and only a little), minor army-typical homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 16:17:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12236340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JezebelGoldstone/pseuds/JezebelGoldstone
Summary: Jensen flirts with Cougar. A lot. To be fair, Jensen flirts with everything that moves (and anything that doesn't, if it's tech), and for the most part the flirting is both directionless and harmless.When he flirts with Cougar, though...





	Environmental Functionality

Jensen flirts with Cougar. A lot. To be fair, Jensen flirts with everything that moves (and anything that doesn't, if it's tech), and for the most part the flirting is both directionless and harmless.  
  
With Cougar, though.  
  
Cougar's only been with the Losers two months at this point, but he thinks there's something different in the way Jensen flirts with him. Again, yes, he's only been with them two months, but almost the entirety of those two months has been spent in Jensen's immediate vicinity. As the English saying goes, they're living out of each other's pockets. And Cougar thinks there's something different about the way Jensen flirts with him.  
  
He goes on thinking that right up to the day it stops being speculation. Everyone else has gone to bed already, and Jensen's dozing on the couch next to him. Cougar doesn't sleep when anyone else is in the room, of course, but he's meditating on a daydream he used to love, watching the light of the TV reflecting in Jensen's glasses, and it's restful. Restful in a way few things have been in a long time.  
  
Being around Jensen is--- well, not always _restful_ , not in the traditional sense. But in some way Cougar doesn't want to think about too closely, being around Jensen is so much less stressful than being around anyone else. Because with Jensen---  
  
Cougar has trouble speaking, sometimes. Not because he doesn't know what to say, but because he doesn't know _how_. But with Jensen--- with Jensen, it's almost never a struggle. Two months and already Cougar knows this. Oh, it's still a struggle for him to speak sometimes; probably always will be. But with Jensen---  
  
Cougar's two youngest siblings are deaf. He grew up with them constantly telling him that disability is a function of the environment. In some environments (for example, in the grocery store in their town, where no one spoke sign language) being deaf is a disability because the environment is difficult for them to interact with. But in other environments (for example, at home and surrounded by their family, who are all fluent in sign language) being deaf is no longer a disability; it is simply a difference.  
  
And with Jensen, Cougar's PTSD and attendant inability to speak is never made to feel like a disability. Like something he could just get over if he tried hard enough, or like something that doesn't have any impact on him or his world. With Jensen, Cougar is simply _different_. But they are both of them able to function around each other in a way Cougar can't really function with anyone else.  
  
It scares the shit out of him.  
  
With a snort Jensen's head falls to the side and he jerks awake. Cougar snickers at the indignant look on his face, and Jensen shoves his shoulder. There's no point thinking about the fact that even after only two months, Cougar doesn't reflexively break Jensen's wrist; doesn't even _dodge_. Just lets Jensen's hand on his shoulder slide him to the left while he keeps snickering. There's no point thinking about that at all.  
  
Jensen glares at him, then stands and ruffles his hands through his hair. "Well," he says, stretching, and there's also no point in noticing the lines of his body (again) or the way his shirt rides up to expose the hair on his stomach (again), so Cougar simply doesn't. "Getting late for good little nerds and kitties. I'm going to bed. Care to join me?"  
  
He smiles at Cougar, and holds out his hand.  
  
Cougar just stares at him.  
  
Jensen--- doesn't move.  
  
His smile isn't fake. His hand isn't shaking. His eyes are cast in shadows, but even so, Cougar knows to his bones that the look in Jensen's eyes is kind. He looks warm and ruffled and calm and--- happy.  
  
This is not a joke, Cougar realizes.  
  
Nor a trick. Jensen wouldn't do that to him. Would never. Not to Cougar; not to anyone.  
  
Once he realizes that, there's truly only one way to respond. So he chuckles again, knocks Jensen's hand out of the way, and stands. "No. You snore," Cougar says.  
  
Jensen looks at him, and they both know what they're really saying, here.  
  
After a moment, Jensen sighs and shakes his head. "I hate to break it to you, man, but the snoring Roque was bitching about last mission? Did not come from _me_." Tentatively, he nudges Cougar's shoulder with the back of his hand.  
  
Cougar shakes his head, too. As he walks out of the room he bumps Jensen's shoulder with his own, and when he passes through the doorway he glances over his shoulder and their eyes catch. Cougar smiles, and Jensen smiles back, and he can see the relief flood Jensen even as it pours down his own spine. Jensen offered, Cougar said no, but neither of them will hold it against the other. There are no hard feelings.  
  
No hard feelings. No feelings at all.  
  
Friendship and working relationship saved, Cougar flees.

* * *

"When I was in my first unit, when I was eighteen," Jensen says one day. They're sitting at the kitchen table quietly, just the two of them, getting their gear ready for a mission to Bolivia they're wheels-up on first thing tomorrow. For Cougar this means giving all his guns a thorough cleaning; for Jensen it means doing the same for his tech. Once or twice when they have something important to say--- when it's so important Cougar has to be able to wrap words around it and say it aloud, or so important Jensen has to pare away all the words he would normally put around something so fragile--- they'll do something with their hands to distract themselves from what they're saying. Only three months Cougar's been with the Losers, and already he and Jensen have done this thrice. That's more of himself than Cougar's ever shared with anyone. Mother of God.  
  
"When I was in my first unit, when I was eighteen," Jensen says again, nodding his head like he's decided that yes, this is something he wants to do, "there were these two guys. Harry and Gary."  
  
Cougar raises an eyebrow at him.  
  
Jensen catches it out of the corner of his eye and laughs. "Of course not. But I'm not going to say who they really were and I have to name them _something_ , right? And fuck you very much, you loved Kingsman and you _totally_ know they were in love. Anyway, if we could continue without any more snarking from the peanut gallery," and Jensen raises an eyebrow right back at him. Cougar puts up his hands in surrender, then goes back to work.  
  
"So," says Jensen. "Right. Harry and Gary. Or Gary and Harry; whatever. Anyway, so these two guys are best friends, right? You know how it is in the army. And they weren't young, a few years older than me, but they'd only been out of bootcamp a little while. So. You know how that goes."  
  
Cougar nods, because he does. People get attached. Focus on each other instead of what's going on around them. People get addicted to drugs and pussy, people get scared and lonely and don't know what to do about it, so they latch on to other soldiers like having some kind of addiction-buddy will make everything okay.  
  
This never happened to Cougar, really. He was raised too strictly to give in to the drugs at first (and after that he didn't give in simply because he has eyes and wants to live through his contract), and whether or not he was ever scared or lonely doesn't matter, because when he was young enough to accidentally latch on to someone else no one ever latched on to him back.  
  
He inspects the piece he's cleaning very carefully, making sure he didn't miss a single bit of grit. He hasn't. He goes over it with the rag again anyway.  
  
Jensen taps away at his keyboard and keeps talking. "One night we were ambushed. We were supposed to be in friendly territory, but shit happens, right? We were pinned down, and Harry took one to the stomach."  
  
Jensen pauses. Cougar doesn't stop moving; doesn't look at him. Gives him the room to find the words.  
  
"Gary just about lost his mind," Jensen says. Quieter, now. "Holding on to Harry, screaming at us, screaming at him, screaming for God and his mother and anyone who'd listen.  
  
"We called for medevac, of course, but---" Jensen shrugs. "Didn't get there in time. Couldn't get through enemy fire, you know? Harry was just lying there, looking at--- He put his hand on Gary's face, you know, like this," Cougar looks up and Jensen mimes cupping his own cheek, "and just. Just smiled. I've never heard anyone make a noise like Gary did when Harry died."  
  
Cougar keeps his eyes on the rag he's moving over whatever piece it is he's holding, still waiting for Jensen to say whatever it is he needs to say.  
  
Speaking normally, now, Jensen says, "We turned him in."  
  
That is _not_ what Cougar was expecting. "I was--- I was eighteen, man, _eighteen_ , and if I got kicked out of the Army there was nothing else for me. DADT was bad, man, you know it was, and I was terrified for myself. It was selfish and stupid, but I did it anyway. I figured everyone else had put it in their reports, too. I mean, they _kissed_. Right in front of everyone. I looked, years later, and yeah, everyone else had it in their reports, too, just like I thought. Doesn't change what I did. He, uh, he got a dishonorable. Gary did, I mean."  
  
Silence for a little while.  
  
"You know what the worst part is?" Jensen asks. Cougar shakes his head. "They never even--- They weren't even _together_ , man. Can you believe that shit? They spent all that time wanting each other and not doing a goddamn thing about it because of DADT, and then one of them just up and _dies_. Fucked up, man."  
  
Cougar nods. His throat is tight. "Gary was discharged," he points out.  
  
"Yeah, he was," Jensen says, and there's fire in his voice now. Cougar looks up at him, surprised, and finds Jensen leaning over the table towards him, looking like he's about ready to start jabbing his finger at Cougar's chest. "The love of his fucking life died in his fucking arms and his unit turned on him and he got dishonorably discharged for it. I learned a lot of things because of that. Don't sleep with your unit. Fuck, doesn't sleep with other soldiers if you can help it. Take the Army's cultural and individual queerphobia very fucking seriously. Be sure of your team, _really_ sure of them, before you drop so much as a hint, and avoid even that if you can. Basically all great big Stay Away, Stay Away lessons, you know?"  
  
Cougar nods.  
  
"The thing is," Jensen says, leaning even further over, "you know the number  _one_ lesson I learned?"  
  
Unable to look away Cougar shakes his head.  
  
"Don't be Gary." His voice is still low and angry, but there's something desperate in the hunch of his shoulders, the lines of his face, the pleading intensity of his eyes. In the way he clutches the edge of the table like he's afraid of what will happen if he lets go. "Don't be Harry. You know? Like, after a certain point---" he stops, shakes his head, clearly frustrated with his inability to explain.  
  
"Don't do something  estúpido," Cougar prompts.  
  
"No," Jensen says. "Not that at all."  
  
He stills and looks Cougar full in the face and it feels like a suckerpunch when he says, "If you care about someone enough, if you're that far gone on them, then _fuck_ everything else. Fuck it all. Don't wait until he's dying in your arms to get your shit together. Throw yourself at him and damn the consequences, because no amount of disciplinary action will ever be as bad as knowing you could have had him and didn't even try."  
  
They don't speak.  
  
Jensen holds his eye for one more minute, and then he gets up and walks away.  
  
Cougar doesn't move for a long, long time.

* * *

The next morning it's wheels up at 0800 and then they're off to Bolivia. Cougar dies when the wheels lift from the earth. Or he might as well, anyway. That's what it feels like, later: surely their plane crashed as it went down the runway, and everything that happens after--- the children, those adorable children, and Max, and Aisha, and the snukes, and _Roque_ \--- Cougar kills him, murders his 2iC, and Roque betrayed them first but Cougar betrays him last and permanently--- surely all of that must be a fucked up coma dream. Or Purgatory. Hell, maybe; Cougar certainly deserves it.  
  
But all this must be something, _anything_ , other than reality. Has to be.

* * *

Cougar is coming apart at the seams.  
  
In Bolivia, the day after they get to the city (32 hours after the helicopter blows up; almost 48 hours without sleep for any of them) when they're finally about to rest, Cougar tries to kiss Jensen. And Jensen catches his shoulders, and stares at him for a moment, and Cougar stares back. They may have dozed on the ride to the hotel, but Jensen looks awful and Cougar knows he does, too.  
  
Don't be Harry, Jensen said. Don't be Harry. It echoes over and over in Cougar's head.  
  
Jensen looks at him for a moment, and then his face crumples, and he puts a hand on the side of Cougar's neck and pulls---  
  
Cougar's expecting a kiss or maybe a bite, but what he gets is a hug. Jensen pulls Cougar's face into the crook of his neck and tucks his own face against Cougar's pulse, and he gasps and chokes and doesn't cry and no matter how tight Jensen holds on Cougar can still feel him shaking.  
  
His own anger and hurt at the rejection is put aside in the face of Jensen's distress, but the moment Jensen has himself under control again Cougar gently but firmly pushes him back, slips out of his arms, stands and walks out of the room, all without looking at his face.  
  
So Jensen doesn't want him after all.  
  
No hard feelings. None. No feelings.

* * *

And then Aisha, and the cemetery, and then--- and then they're going back to the USA, they're going to find Max, they're going to clear their names and avenge their dead and get their lives back and everything is going to be okay, it's going to be okay, _it's going to be okay_.  
  
For the first time in months, Cougar himself might be okay again.

* * *

Their first night back on US soil they're scattered through the unused offices in the warehouse they're using to get the helicopter ready. Cougar's claimed the office furthest from everyone else, and he's surprised when there's a knock on the door. He's not surprised, though, when he opens it and finds Jensen.  
  
Jensen pushes into the room, pushes up in Cougar's personal space, kicks the door shut behind himself and takes Cougar's face in his hands.  
  
"We're okay now, right? It's gonna be okay," he whispers fiercely in the musty darkness.  
  
"Si," Cougar whispers back. He's not precisely sure what Jensen's talking about--- their collective mental state, their lives in general, Cougar and Jensen themselves and the fact that they've never touched each other in desire even though each of them has tried--- but tonight? Yes. Yes to all of those things. Tonight everything is okay.  
  
"Good," Jensen says, pushes Cougar against the wall, and kisses him.  
  
Before Jensen can possibly worry about whether or not this is welcome, Cougar wraps around him and kisses him back with all his heart.

* * *

"I'm sorry about before," Jensen says, but he's currently attacking Cougar's neck like it's the only reason he's still alive and Cougar's eyes rolled back in his head an age ago, so it takes a little while for the words to register.  
  
"Why?" Cougar says--- _means_ to say, but Jensen's tongue swirls over his adam's apple and halfway through the word Cougar loses the ability to speak.  
  
"For Bolivia," Jensen whispers.  
  
Cougar bends his knee, puts his foot flat on the wall behind himself, and shoves. They go tumbling onto the mattress laid out on the floor and Jensen lets out a surprised, manly squeak. He scrambles onto his elbows as Cougar kneels astride his hips and fists his hands in his shirt.  
  
"Not your fault," Cougar hisses. "No 'sorry.' _Never_."  
  
It's like Cougar pulled a plug he hadn't known was there. Jensen freezes, doesn't even breathe, just lies there and stares up at him with this look on his face that's too startled to allow for any other emotion.  
  
Cougar stays where he is, glaring, waiting for Jensen to get it through his goddamn thick head. Admittedly that might take a while, but Cougar's known for a long time that he could wait beyond the limits of his otherwise excessive patience for Jensen. He could wait forever, if it was for Jensen.  
  
All at once Jensen loosens, every line of him going soft and his face going far more tender than Cougar ever thought he'd get to see. "I know, Cougs," Jensen says, raising a hand to brush his fingertips gently against Cougar's cheek. "Wasn't your fault, either. None of us."  
  
"Si," Cougar agrees, bending down to run his lips over Jensen's chest where Cougar's nudging his shirt up.  
  
Jensen pushes him back and sits up to pull his shirt all over his head (and he's already pulling it up with both hands as he sits up and Cougar's still pinning his hips and thighs, which means he's raising the bulk of his entire upper body under the power of nothing but his fantastic abs, and yeah, it's hot). He tugs at Cougar's shirt and says, "What, you're not going to ask me what I was _actually_ apologizing for?"  
  
Cougar laughs--- it's strange, the sudden burst of euphoria that strikes his chest as he tumbles now-shirtless Jensen back onto his bed, so different from the hot, desperate solemnity of a moment ago--- and shakes his head. Jensen squirms and tries to blow Cougar's hair out of his mouth, so Cougar shakes his hair over Jensen and runs his stubbly face over Jensen's neck, laughing again when Jensen tries to shield himself with his shoulder. His bare arms are around Cougar and Cougar's bare chest is against his and there's so much skin and warmth and Cougar laughs _again_ because it is so _wonderful_.  
  
"No," Cougar answers, nipping playfully at Jensen's ear," you'll say or not."  
  
"I was talking," Jensen says amidst breathless chuckles, "about when we got there. When you-ooh-ooh--- ooohhh--- ah, when you tried to kiss me."  
  
Ah. Yes. _That_.  
  
Couldn't Jensen have waited until tomorrow to bring that up? Or, fuck, couldn't he at least wait until they'd finished _tonight_ first? Couldn't he just--- let this happen, let this be whatever the fuck it was going to be, before he starts talking about what he _wants_ it to be?  
  
"I'm sorry," Jensen whispers in his ear. Cougar doesn't know what to say. Couldn't say whatever it was even if he knew. Cannot move.  
  
Jensen knocks Cougar's elbows out from under him and pulls, and when Cougar collapses on him he doesn't try to shift Cougar's weight or complain about his bony ribs or anything, just wraps his arms yet more firmly 'round about him and cuddles him to his chest, pressing his cheek to Cougar's forehead.  
  
"I'm sorry I did it that way, and I'm sorry I didn't bring it up again later. Till now, anyway. And I'm sorry that I _am_ bringing it up now, but this has to be said before we do anything, and well, like I said, sorry I didn't bring it up before."  
  
Jensen's skin is very warm. His sweat is stinging Cougar's eyes. His heart is beating hummingbird-fast beneath Cougar's own, and Cougar just--- he _wants_.  
  
"I just," and Jensen cuts himself off to push Cougar's hair back and kiss his forehead. If it were anyone else Cougar would break every bone in their hand for trying to be gentle amidst such a thorough rejection--- but then again, if it were anyone other than Jensen, Cougar wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.  
  
"I just," Jensen says again, "we were both in such a bad place, you know? What am I saying; of course you know. But what I _mean_ is--- what I mean is I couldn't. I couldn't deal with it if..."  
  
He cuts himself off, and Cougar begins to realize he read this wrong. He read _Jensen_ wrong. He thought he knew why Jensen rejected him before, but what he thought was _wrong_. And whatever the real reason was, this is something Jensen needs to say now. So Cougar waits.  
  
"You said no when I offered," Jensen says. Cougar can feel his voice vibrating in his own chest, can trace the rhythm of the words in the strokes of Jensen's hand on the bare skin of his back. "And then you only offered when we were, well, when we were in a crisis. I was out of my mind, man, you know I was, but the idea that you were only doing that because of what had happened, and not because you wanted--- not because of _me_ , like, for myself---"  
  
Jensen's not done but Cougar gets it now and he doesn't want Jensen to keep talking like this, so he surges up and kisses him.  
  
Presses their lips together hard, hard and fierce and unmoving, only shifts himself enough to be able to bring both hands up to frame Jensen's face. Jensen is worryingly still; doesn't move at all except to clutch at Cougar like he's drowning and Cougar's all that could keep him afloat, hardly even breathes until a single breath punches through him like a shot.  
  
"Shh," Cougar hushes him, gently, pressing kisses over every bit of Jensen's flushed face he can reach and trying to cover Jensen's entire body with his own.  
  
Jensen's still for another moment, holding his breath though Cougar can feel his chest spasm with what he's holding in--- and then he just says " _Cougs_ ," and puts a hand to Cougar's face to draw his lips back to his own.  
  
Cougar's lost after that, lost in the heat and slick slide and the unlooked-for _softness_ that is Jake Jensen in bed with him. There's a terrible moment when they have to roll away from each other to get their pants off, but then ALL of Jensen is there for the taking, and Cougar does, takes and takes and takes everything Jensen's willing to let him have and doesn't care that he's giving all of himself away in return.  
  
They're pressed together, toes to mouths, hands between them and cocks pressed together, panting and gasping and moaning into each other's mouths, desperate with it, and when Jensen comes he shudders and groans and his eyes squeeze shut and his brows draw up like he's sad and Cougar freezes, muscles tensing as his own orgasm jolts through him, eyes blown wide and every sense straining to take in every feeling of Jensen in ecstasy and lock it away for the rest of his life.  
  
Neither of them move for a long moment more, and then Jensen's breath hitches again and he ducks forward, both hands going around him. Cougar doesn't even  _care_ that he can feel their mingled come smearing on his back, he just wraps his own arms around Jensen, too, tucking his face into his neck and breathing hard, blood-hot cocks wet between them and hearts thundering. Eventually they'll clean up so they don't get cemented together but the two most important things in the world are the knowledge that Jensen will still be in his arms come morning, and the feeling that something beneath his ribs has slipped out and melded with something beneath Jensen's, so that the line between where Cougar ends and Jensen begins isn't so definite, now.

* * *

The night they finally kill Max they lie outside together, staring up at the stars. It's cool and breezy, the air smelling green and damp. Jensen is warm and solid by his side, and Cougar feels like if Jensen stops anchoring him to the world he'll fall right into the sky.  
  
"Cougar?" Jensen whispers. Cougar rubs his thumb over Jensen's knuckles. "I'm--- I'm in love with you."  
  
Cougar comes plummeting back to earth.  
  
He gets like this and he hates it and it's awful. The more important the words are, the less he's able to say them. Before Afghanistan it was just that his accent in English is terrible, and normal-person levels of Important Things Are Difficult to Say. And then there was Jensen, and his persistent silences stopped being something to agonize over and started being just a difference. Things have always been different, with Jensen. But now---  
  
He gets like this and he hates it and it's awful, and he's going to start being like this around Jensen, too, and that's worst of all. It's going to be the same with Jensen as it is with everyone else.  
  
"Stop," Jensen whispers. He puts his hand over Cougar's clenched fist and squeezes. "I know, man. You don't need to speak, okay? You never do. You don't have to do anything, Cougs. I gotcha."  
  
Cougar takes a deep, rattling breath, and he hates himself more than he did before. When Jensen says something like this he should not be met with _silence_.  
  
But Cougar _cannot_ speak. It's never been like this with Jensen before, and even though he _knows_ he won't be able to, he pretends like things are the way they were five minutes ago. He opens his mouth to try, and it's not possible. He can no more speak than he can fly, for all that sometimes Jensen makes him feel like maybe _could_.  
  
He cannot speak so he rolls on top of Jensen and kisses him, hard and frantic, and instead of being swept up in the passion of it Jensen laughs into his mouth. Cougar pulls back, hurt and affronted and worried Jensen's reading him wrong, but Jensen smiles at him with such heartbreaking sincerity Cougar can't move. "I already know," Jensen says. He pushes Cougar's hair behind his ear, and no one else has ever touched Cougar with such utter gentleness.  
  
"I know. It's all good," Jensen says, tugging him down, and this time when their lips meet it is soft and slow and _intense_.  
  
Cougar has no idea how Jensen manages to express Cougar's feelings even better than Cougar himself can, but he's happy to let Jensen keep showing him the way.  
  
Holy fuck. Cougar is _happy_.  
  
He pulls back and can't say anything, just smiles down at Jensen, because Jensen is beautiful and understanding and _perfect_ and Cougar loves him.  
  
Jensen smiles up at him, tracing along the edge of his lips, and looks completely overwhelmed. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah. That. Exactly."  
  
Cougar huffs a laugh and kisses him again. It still feels like he's about to fall away from the ground, but Jensen is warm and solid and all around him, and really this is what kissing underwater must feel like; this weightless, close press, this complete dependence on the physicality of another, with the stars at his back and all the world before him.

* * *

Days later, Cougar's hardly spoken. It's like Chinese handcuffs: the harder he pulls at the words, the more firmly they get lodged in his chest. He can barely even ask Pooch to pass him the salt, now, he's trying so desperately to tell Jensen that he loves him.  
  
For all that he can't speak, he clings to closer to Jensen than ever. They spent most of their time together before, but now they're not just in the same room; now Cougar is always within arm's reach of Jensen. At all times. The others give him weird looks, but no one says anything. And Jensen just acts like everything is is perfectly normal, talking and laughing and joking around with everyone and tapping away at a keyboard while he smiles at whatever Cougar's doing, even if it's something boring and mundane.  
  
That night, it's only he and Jensen still awake. Cougar is dozing on the couch while Jensen sprawls next to him, softly telling him about the game he's coding.  
  
"I'm sorry," Jensen says, and it's such a non-sequitur it takes Cougar a second to catch up. "I'm sorry if what I said before upset you or freaked you out. That was not my intention. I won't say it anymore if you don't want. Or I'll say it every day. Whichever. But it'll always be true, okay? No matter what you say or don't say, it'll always be true." Then, very quietly, "I've loved you for so long, Cougs."  
  
Cougar's careful to be gentle with Jensen's laptop when he pulls it out of his hands and sets it on the coffee table. He intends to straddle Jensen's lap and be 'all slinky and sexy' like Jensen says he is--- but what ends up happening is he crawls into Jensen's arms, and instead of seducing him Cougar just clings and clings. Eventually Jensen falls asleep beneath him with his fingers in Cougar's hair, but Cougar's awake for a long, long time.

* * *

Cougar figured out a trick, a long time ago, for how to approach something sideways so his brain couldn't psyche him out of it. He perfected it when he was sixteen and walking the bluffs next to the beach with his sister. He'd wanted to jump into the water but had been too frightened, even though their father said the water was deep enough. So Cougar (Carlito still, then) had walked along the bluffs talking to his sister to distract himself, and when he had the split-second thought to realize he wasn't frightened anymore, without waiting he flung himself over the edge and into the water. It's worked well for him ever since: if there's something his brain doesn't want to let him do, he distracts himself and then does it the  _moment_ he realizes it works. He just can't let himself think about it.  
  
So one day when it's just Cougar and Jensen and Pooch sitting around watching TV and loading magazines Cougar says, "Knew who you were as soon as I was transferred. Before we met I was assigned to snipe for you in the middle of a mission. You did not know it was me. I didn't say anything over the comms."  
  
He doesn't look at either of them when he says it, and he doesn't say that this was before Afghanistan. He knows Jensen will figure it out as soon as he looks it up. And he knows that when Jensen goes looking he'll find it; his orders to cover the Losers had been unofficial and never ended up in any records, which is why Jensen didn't find out when he was doing a check on Cougar before he joined the team. But he knows that Jensen will find it easily, now that Cougar's told him what to look for.  
  
Mostly, though, what Cougar _does not say_ is that he heard them all laughing. He heard how Jensen and Pooch dicked around, and how Roque grumbled but it sounded fond, and how Clay didn't reprimand them. And he doesn't say how he yearned with all his heart to be part of it. There had been something about this unit, but especially the blond one, that just--- Cougar just wanted so much. Something in the camaraderie and the teasing and the--- just. After that, the blond one became a sort of talisman that Cougar would hold up before his eyes in the dark, whenever he was so lonely he couldn't bear it.  
  
Later, days later, Jensen says to him with no segue, "But when they tried to transfer you to us you refused. Twice."  
  
Cougar just shrugs and says, "Thought none of you would like me." And that's giving away enough as it is, saying that the reason was personal rather than professional. He doesn't add that finding out their camaraderie wasn't extended to him would ruin the one good daydream he had. Jensen probably hears all of it anyway.  
  
"Goddamnit, Cougs," Jensen grits out, striding forward and sweeping Cougar into a bone-crushing hug. "Don't you ever say shit like that again. Of every man on Earth, you are my _favorite_."  
  
Cougar just hugs him back.

* * *

Cougar's dozing on the couch. It's warm and quiet, and no one else is around except for Jensen, who's sprawled out on the other side of Cougar's curled legs with his laptop.  
  
He has one split second to realize he's calm and comfortable and can probably speak before his brain catches up but he can't think about it too much or it'll go away. It's like when the perfect shot lines up: he doesn't have time to double-check and make sure everything is good, he has to _do it now_.  
  
So he looks at Jensen and blurts out, like throwing himself off a cliff, "I've loved you since before you knew I existed."  
  
For a moment nothing moves.  
  
Then Jensen looks at him with this wide-open, _shocked_ look, like was just hit over the head with a brick or tripped after Cougar off an unexpected cliff.  
  
Cougar's throat closes, his chest seizes, and his heart thunders in his ears. It's not because he's worried about Jensen's reaction--- Jensen loves him, or thinks he does, so nothing bad will happen because Cougar said he returns his feelings. No, it's because he knows something important and he _said it out loud_ , he _talked_ , he fucking _sang_ when he knows knows _knows_ that talking gets him tortured and other people killed and---  
  
"Look at me, man, come on," Jensen's voice manages to pierce the roaring in Cougar's head. He opens his eyes to see Jensen in front of him, both his hands on Cougar's shoulders. Cougar's hands shoot out and grab Jensen's shirt, he can't breathe, he can't breathe, he can't _breathe_ \---  
  
Jensen coaches him through the breathing exercises they were all taught for just such times, and when Cougar's finally breathing on his own Jensen partially falls onto him and partially drags Cougar into his arms, tucks Cougar's face into his neck and strokes his hair and just says, "It's okay, it's okay, I've got you, you did so good, you didn't say anything you shouldn't have, everyone's fine, what you said was good, I'm here, baby, I'm here, it's okay..."

* * *

After that it gets easier. Cougar's never going t obe a chatterbox, but it's like telling Jensen he loves him (and holy God, does Cougar love him) knocked something in him loose. Not just the words "I love you," but all the other words, too. Like whatever was blocking everything is--- not gone, maybe, but--- shifted.  
  
Clay no longer looks surprised if Cougar says more than two sentences at once. Pooch stops looking concerned when they carry on entire conversations verbally. Aisha isn't fazed by anything, of course, and Jess and Jolene seem to take it all in stride, though Cougar does see them once quietly and joyfully freaking out at each other after he spends half an hour telling Beth the Spanish words for anything she points to.  
  
And Jensen.  
  
Jensen is so happy he's effervescent. Not because he suddenly knows Cougar loves him, because he knew that before. But because he can tell that now it's easier for Cougar to say what he wants to. True, Cougar still doesn't _want_ to say as much as many other people do--- he's always been quiet and always will be; it's just how he is--- but now, when he _does_ want to say something, it's not such a struggle.  
  
He even tells Jensen this. With few words, yes, but he says them out loud and doesn't panic after. At first he thinks he's said something wrong, but then he realizes Jensen's just standing there with his back to him because he's so happy he's got his fingers pressed to his eyes so he doesn't tear up.  
  
That's when Cougar comes to another decision. He knows that even more than simply speaking, _asking_ for things is one of the best things he can do to make Jensen happy.  
  
So Cougar practices the words over and over and over because he wants to actually SAY them, damnit. But when the time comes his throat chokes up and his eyes get blurry and he knows that if he opens his mouth what comes out won't be words, and after a moment of Jensen looking worried all Cougar can do is drop to one knee and hold out the ring and try to breathe.  
  
Jensen cries for real this time and Cougar laughs (a little hysterically) when he realizes that now Jensen can't speak either. He's got both hands clapped over his mouth, and finally he just nods furiously, and Cougar lets out a strangled noise and then Jensen's kneeling on the floor in front of him, holding his face in his hands and kissing him, kissing him, kissing the breath right out of him. And even though neither of them can speak for a long time after that, it turns out words aren't needed much after all.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Yes okay I admit it the headcanon that Cougar's two youngest siblings are deaf is a nod to the UTTERLY FANTASTIC STORY 'Cause I'm Having a Good Time by Mnemmy which you should definitely read if you haven't already.


End file.
